Nova
I don’t know how many times I’ve slept.
It’s dark. It’s been dark for so long I’m not sure I remember what light looks like. I’m sitting on the cold ground, huddled in the corner. It doesn’t keep the cold away.
The tray comes. I don’t touch it. The tray disappears. I sleep again. That’s the whole concept of time in here — trays and darkness and the particular kind of silence that means no one is coming.
My guess is days. At least a few have gone by since I spent what felt like hours staring at Laith’s face and that was before this, so.
Days, then. Maybe more.
It doesn’t matter. Time passing doesn’t change anything. Time passing just means more of the same dark and the same silence and the same loop of things I don’t let myself finish thinking about.
Locke going down in the street.
I stop there. Every time. I stop there and I find something else.
Because I can’t…
Vaelor fixing my coffee in the morning like he always did. The way he never made it a thing. Just quietly kept adjusting until it was right.
Rane talking too much at dinner and somehow it was the most comfortable sound I’d ever been inside.
Beckett covered in sawdust, so focused he probably didn’t notice me watching.
The house. The blue door at the end of the road, lit from inside because someone was always already home.
I didn’t know what that was the first time I saw it. I’d never had it before. I kept waiting for it to stop feeling like something and then one day it just didn’t, and I remember being surprised by that. Thinking — oh. This is just what it feels like now.
I thought it would always feel like that.
I survived alone before. Fifteen years. I know how to make myself small and invisible and need nothing and no one. I did it for all those years before they found me and I was fine.
I was fine.
The difference is I didn’t know what I was missing.
I’m not sure if I’m awake or still under when I hear it.
Wings.
Somewhere above me or nearby, close enough that I can make it out. I go still and listen. A few moments pass and I hear it again, fading off into the distance. There must be a window nearby.
I don’t know what it was.
But something about hearing those wings calms me a little.
Makes me think I’m not alone in here.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
I fall asleep listening for it to come back.
I wake up slow.
Slower than I have since they put me in this fucking box.
My body feels heavy. I can barely see my hands it’s so dark, but I can feel them shake.
I sit with my back against the wall and just breathe and let it be enough.
A sound outside the cell and a scrape of metal. The tray slides through.
I don’t move for a long time.
Even though I can smell it, still warm enough that I can make out what it is without seeing it. My stomach growls.
I can’t keep doing this.
I know I can’t and it still doesn’t make what I’m about to do any better.
I crawl forward towards the smell in the dark. I don’t think I can stand right now. Hell, I’m not sure there’s enough room in this box to stand.
I reach out barely making out the tray in front of me. My hand lands on a roll. I take it, turning and settling against the wall. I breathe in.
It smells like bread.
I take a small bite.
I lean my head back, close my eyes and chew, trying to make it last.
“Hello?”
I freeze.
A voice. Quiet and uncertain. Coming from somewhere close— next to me maybe, through the wall, I can’t tell, the dark makes distance impossible.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
My throat works around the bread.
“Yeah,” I manage. “I’m here.”
Silence. Then a breath — shaky, released.
“Oh thank god.” A pause. “Why do I know your voice?”
Something moves through me. Cold and wrong.
Because I know her voice too.
“Nova?” It cracks on my name. “Nova, it’s Lena.”
Something in my chest opens.
“Lena.” Her name comes out wrong. Too much in it. “How are you — are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” She sounds like she’s been crying for a long time and ran out somewhere in the dark. “Are you? Nova, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Not true but not the point. “How long have you been… How did you get here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t — it’s been dark the whole time, I can’t —” She stops. Gets herself together. “They came back. Nova, they came back to the Hollow. The crow warned us but it wasn’t enough.”
I go still.
Why would the crow…
I shake my head. I need to focus.
“The guys?” My voice is steady. I don’t know how because I don’t want to ask but I need to know. “Lena, the guys —”
“Nova.”
The way she says my name makes my stomach clench.
“No.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No —”
“They’re gone. I watched — Nova, I’m so sorry, they’re gone.”
The dark doesn’t change.
Nothing changes.
I slide down the wall until I’m on the floor and I don’t remember deciding to do that.
I roll on my side, bring my knees up to my chest.
I gave myself up so it wouldn’t happen and it happened anyway and—
The tears come and I don’t try to stop them.
There’s no one here to see.